She had built him, on purpose, and she was standing in the doorway admiring her work.

I want to explain why I did not fall apart in that kitchen, because the not-falling-apart is the whole story, and it did not come from nowhere.

People hear she left fourteen hours after the wedding and imagine a woman who acted on impulse, who snapped.

It was the opposite.

I had spent two years being quietly, carefully uneasy — noticing things and then talking myself out of what I’d noticed.

The way Casper’s warmth cooled by a few degrees whenever I disagreed with him.